Wake of the Scarlet Siren

Interesting to see that someone else went for the pirate theme. And what a great game! You managed to create an awesome mood and the characters are really unique. The soundeffects are great and especially the music gives a really great feeling of a small ship on the sea, haunted by dead pirate captains.
The writing is also very well and I enjoyed the story thoroughly. It seems that you have quite a lot packed in your game.

Unfortunately I sometimes had minor sound issues: The wave sound sometimes stopped playing and some of the sounds are rather inconsistent in volume. And one of the textboxes had some "//" in them. But anyway, those are minor issues that do not distract from the main game.

That was a very atmospheric game. The art, especially the portraits, as well as the music, sound effect, and even the unique "voice" and fonts of the characters worked well togeher. And the sailing between islands was a good match for the theme.

The writing was interesting as well, the characters felt like they had distinct personalities, and the story was compelling enough to keep going to see where it was headed.

I had some issues with the ship, it is easy to get "stuck" on a corner (especially when launched into to it by an enemy), and I also had to restart the game (since I was rammed by a ship right after a "cutscene" and it pinned me against the island). Perhaps the pursuers should relent when near an island?

All in all, this was a very interesting story and game.

Great mood and writing in this one! My only gripe was that Leftpaw's font was a bit hard to read. On my first playthrough I was also able to finish the game without ever visiting Leftpaw. The enemy ships pushed me into the fog and I couldn't find my way out of there. After blindlly stumbling around for a while the final segment of the game was triggered.

Nice story with great art and interesting characters. I liked the way the characters backstories progressed and it was fun to watch them interact. The character art and music were also very good. Unfortunately I did find the gameplay to be a bit annoying at times. I had to restart the game because I got stuck on one of the invisible rocks near the final island, and even after the restart the rocks never appeared (which may have been intentional, but I feel like the story implied otherwise?)
Overall though I thought this was a very enjoyable game, well done.

Stunning artwork and good writing!

Gameplay-wise it could be better; the sailing around is a bit tedious since there is no creativity or skill involved and the other ships are no threat other than bumping you around a bit. Since the focus was on the story, the game could have been entirely text-based. As for the dialogue gameplay, I didn't feel like my choices had any real impact on the continuation of the game. Having a non-linear story with multiple endings would be nicer in my opinion.

I loved the story and the artwork! Incredible writing and I loved the added humour. I can't believe you guys managed to create such an enjoyable, polished game in only a weekend! Amazing stuff.

My only gripe with the game was the ships movements. The enemy ships were a fun addition but 2 times they wedged me into an island and I had to restart :(. But other than that I really enjoyed my experience. Well done!

Presentation and production are amazing for a weekend, incredible stuff. You really captured that Sunless Sea vibe, completely in awe

Heya, today I played your game in my stream
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1591765903?t=0h6m59s
It was the first game in the stream and if I had not stopped myself it would probably have been the only game I played on the stream.
It was really fun to read the story and the dialogue of the characters. Although I often stumble over unknown vocabulary.. (But thats my lack of vocabulary, not your fault of course!)

I really love the art. the ship was a bit hard to stear but the ships of the enemies helpt me to get on track. haha.

This game is really a great entry!

Wasn't really my cup of tea. The art was amazing and the soundscape fit the mood well. All the characters looked great and had interesting/unique designs. Nice touch to have them speak on different pleasant looking fonts and colors.

The switch between characters is a bit messy, it kinda looks like it's already giving you back to control to the overworld as the fade is so slow. A bit snappier transition would have worked a lot better in my opinion. And sometimes the ends of conversations also have this weird transition fade to the undead pirate before fully fading out even if he has nothing to say. The buttons sometimes are squeezed too full of text and they are way too low rez compared to everything else.

The actual "gameplay" wasn't great really. It doesn't control very well and there is nothing to do besides just move from one slog of a conversation to the next. There are annoying invisible walls everywhere and the arrows are pointing to out of bounds. The turning speed and overall control of the ship was sluggish and other ships knocking you around like it was pinball made no sense at all. Especially unfun when they pretty much soft lock you out of the game…

The bully ships also have their movement effect positioned on top which looks awkward.

Right from the start, it lets you play for only a split second before throwing I think three different conversations on your face that did very little to get me interested in the story or the characters. The pacing just felt off and rushed. Having just more things to do in the overworld and slowing down the story time would have felt so much better.

The pacing does get a bit better later on when there is more travel between the conversations but it doesn't feel great either as the controls and the forementioned invisible wall issues make it not fun at all to travel. It is also a bit hard to figure out where the arrows are pointing to as there are no visible markers or anything remarkable where the actual triggers are. And as far as I understood, the arrows never stop pointing even though you're already exhausted the conversation in that spot.

It's very easy to glitch out and completely break the speech box proceed arrow by skipping the text too fast.

I did finally manage to find the end after having to fully restart the game. 🎉

Anyways, good job! 👍 Some better pacing for feeding the story and more polish and stuff to actually do in the overworld and it would have been amazing. Pretty nice nevertheless!

Pity the fullscreen doesn't work well – it seems to mess with the aspect ratio. I'll have to experience this in a little box.

Another little bug is that the right-arrow button appears briefly and then instantly disappears. Fortunately I can click anywhere to continue.

The character art is amazing. It wouldn't be out of place in a professional indie title.

Sound is super atmospheric too and really adds a lot to the experience.

The writing could use another pass or two of editing. Sentences like: "Before you can finish your inquiry, what you begin to realize is the ghost of a pirate captain interrupts you." and "As you get draw closer to the shore you realize that you're first guess was too generous_,_ at most the cave could hide a longship." And sometimes it felt like there's just too much of it, like when pulling my raft ashore on the second island.

Most of the time, the dialogue buttons are actions I take, even if it's just a single option. But sometimes it's just a glorified continue button as in "The captain continues speaking", which is a bit odd.

Sometimes the font indicates a character talking, but sometimes it's also them doing something, without a clear visual indication. It's clear once you start reading, but maybe you could indicate the difference by using the default "narrator" font for actions, or put quotation marks around actual speech. This is sometimes done, but not consistently.

Sometimes, I saw the text NARRATION or LEFTPAW as the first line of the text, which I'm sure wasn't intended :)

The story is great, with memorable characters each with a distinct style and personality, and it all ends in a satisfying way. I'm not sure if I just happened to visit the islands in the right order for the story to make sense, or whether the game is rigged that way.

The actual sailing of the raft is the only agency the player really has, and I wonder how the game would have felt without it. I imagine you were planning more in this area, with the ships and the whirlpools.

This game had so much work put into it especially with the massive amount of dialogue it has. The gameplay itself seems to be there just to serve as a vessel for the story. I was a little confused at times as to what I was supposed to do so I would just drift aimlessly until the next story event would start. The writing, art and audio work are all superb. Solid entry!